CFP: William Carlos Williams Society (3/25/03; MLA '03)

CFP: The Amplitude of the Exact Moment: Prose, Poetry, and "Spring and
All" (3/25/03; MLA, 2003)

In a recent article, "William Carlos Williams: Spring and All," Lisa
Steinman argues that "the one certainty" about the poem is that "we are
consistently invited to reread the poem in different registers." While the
same implicit invitation is contained in many long poems, Williams' blend
of prose and poetry explicitly complicates the challenge he initially lays
down for any reader: "to know what he is at the exact moment that he is."
The problem, as Williams well knows, is how to define the "exact moment,"
especially if the amplitude of that instant demands the reader negotiate
abrupt transitions between poetry and prose.

Some of the potential topics I would like panelists to consider include:
--The relationship between collage, Nietzsche's "eternal return," and
Williams' assessment of the cycles of evolution in SPRING AND ALL
--The role of the "imagination," which Williams asserts is an autonomous
force, in distinguishing between prose and poetry
--The influence of Marianne Moore, to whose work Williams devotes several
pages in SPRING AND ALL, on Williams' poetics
--SPRING AND ALL and the development of the long poem in "Language" poetry
--"Either to write or to comprehend poetry the words must be recognized to
be moving in a direction separate from the jostling or the lack of it
which occurs within the piece," Williams writes near the end of SPRING AND
ALL. How does meter, which shadows several poems and paragraphs in SPRING
AND ALL in surprising ways, affect the "exact moment" of this separate
direction?

Please send title and 250 word abstracts by March 25 to:
Bill Mohr
bmohr_at_ucsd.edu
Please: no attachments.

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Received on Sun Mar 09 2003 - 17:55:02 EST